A well-dressed young man in blue doublet and bright yellow hose slipped between the embattled guards, his eyes on Ferrante. The little groom ran forward to meet him, brandishing his dagger. The contest was unequal, the dagger parry futile. The Montefoglian's sword buried itself in the boy's chest. The little groom screamed. Yellow-hose paused, as if shocked and astonished by his own effect.

Ferrante turned scarlet. "Coward!" he bellowed, snatched out his sword left-handed, and spurred his flashy chestnut horse on. His hot dark eyes focused on Yellow-hose with terrifying concentration. Yellow-hose took a look at his face, yanked his sword from the little groom with a spatter of blood, turned, and ran.

He almost succeeded in drawing Ferrante out from his screen of guards. Hands reached up to grab for the horse's gilded bridle, and the street men roared. Ferrante swung at them, and spurred again. His horse reared and kicked, squealing, connecting at least once with a solid, juicy thunk. The guards ran forward to catch up.

A Montefoglian swordsman popped up in front of Thur. Thur whipped out his dagger and knocked the blow away barely in time, and then, not knowing what else to do, lunged forward and wrapped his assailant in a bear hug, trapping the sword arm. His prisoner heaved and struggled, and they gasped garlic and onion, exertion and terror, onto each other. "Not me, you idiot!" Thur groaned into the Montefoglian's nearby ear. "I'm on your side!" The Montefoglian tried to butt him with his head.

A flash of color and movement to the side—Thur wrenched his prisoner around just as another Montefoglian thrust at him. The man's sword ran clean through his comrade's back and pierced Thur's belly. Thur sprang back with a cry of pain and surprise, and the man he'd bear-hugged slumped to the cobbles. The second swordsman wailed, and drew his sword out hurriedly, as if he might so take back his misaimed, disastrous blow.

Thur touched his belly. His shaking hand came away red as the stain spread on his new tan tunic. But it was only a surface cut; he could feel it, no organs touched. He could straighten and move, and did, snuffling backwards. The Montefoglian didn't follow up but, crying, tried to drag his injured comrade away.

Thur whirled around as a scraping clatter grew deafening. It was the scrabble of hooves on the cobblestones. Half a dozen green-clad Losimon cavalrymen were riding down from the castle to succor their lord. They slammed into the street men from behind, scattering them and totally disrupting their attack. Each man turned from the assault on Ferrante and began to try to save himself. Losimons chased them severally up the alleyway. Thur felt around himself; he had not, thank God, dropped his pack nor spilled its incriminating contents across the cobbles.

Ferrante, breathing heavily, soothed his pawing horse. The animal's eyes rolled white, nostrils flaring with the scent of blood. The boy-groom, whey-faced, eyes fixed and staring, lay now across Ferrante's lap. Ferrante sheathed his sword and, murmuring, turned the boy's head around to his. He stared for a stunned moment into the dead face, then growled like a wolf.

Two of the guards were injured. Three dead Montefoglians lay on the stones, including the one Thur had wrestled. Two dismounted cavalrymen held the struggling Yellow-hose a prisoner.

Ferrante's face went from red to livid gray. He pointed to the prisoner, and spoke to his cavalry captain. "Squeeze that one. Find out the names of his accomplices. Then hunt them down and kill them." The chestnut horse danced uneasily beneath its rigid rider.

"My lord," Messer Vitelli resheathed his dagger, which he had not used, and pressed his horse up beside Ferrante's. "A word." His voice fell. "Hold this one, yes. Learn what he knows. But don't spend men pursuing them now. It would just plunge their families into vendetta against you."

Thur breathed covert relief. A voice of reason and mercy, to stop this monstrous cascade of violence ... his respect for Vitelli rose a notch.

"When your troops arrive, then take the assassins and all their relatives at once," Vitelli went on. "Leave none alive to seek revenge. It will make a good strong first impression, after which your rule will be less troubled."

Ferrante's brows went up; he studied his secretary as if slightly bemused. At last he grunted assent. "See to it, Niccolo."

Vitelli on his restive horse bowed his head briefly in acknowledgement. "That reminds me. We should let the late Duke's enemies out of the dungeon. We're going to need the space."

"Take care of it," sighed Ferrante. The excitement and energy of the fight were visibly draining from him, leaving a kind of lassitude. He glanced down at Thur. "You're hurt, German." He sounded, if not exactly concerned, at least mildly interested.

"It's just a scratch, my lord," Thur managed to choke out.

Ferrante's war-experienced eye summed Thur and concurred. He gave Thur a brief nod. "Good. I like a man who doesn't whine."

Despite himself, Thur felt inanely warmed by the man's approval. Remember who he is. Remember Uri. He gave Ferrante a stiff nod in return, which for some reason caused Ferrante to smile dryly to himself.

With a last thin-lipped look of grief, Ferrante smoothed back the boy-groom's hair from his white forehead and gave his body over to one of the cavalrymen. He frowned at Thur's palm, pressed to his red belly, and extended his left hand. "Climb up. I'll give you a ride to my surgeon."

So Thur found himself not an inch away from Ferrante himself, athwart the chestnut horse's muscular haunches as the beast climbed to the castle. His fingers clung to the saddle's carved cantle, not daring or wishing to grip the Lord of Losimo. Ferrante rode through the tower-flanked gate and let Thur down in the castle courtyard, and detailed a guard to guide him. "When you've got a patch on that belly, find my secretary. He'll show you the work."

Chapter Ten

Thur followed the guard across the courtyard. A servant led Lord Ferrante's horse in the opposite direction. On his left Thur recognized the elaborate marble staircase that he'd glimpsed in Monreale's mirror. Ferrante mounted the steps two at a time and disappeared into the castle. In his guide's wake Thur entered a much humbler portal on the north side of the court into what was apparently the servants' wing. They passed through a stone-paved, whitewashed kitchen where half a dozen sweating and cursing men wrestled with firewood and the carcass of an ox. A couple of frightened-looking old women kneaded a small mountain of bread dough. Beyond the kitchen a butler's pantry was taken over by a camp apothecary, and a few steps up and a turn through another corridor brought them to the late Duke Sandrino's state dining room.

It had been converted to a temporary hospital. A dozen sick or wounded men lay on woven straw pallets. Upon the frescoed walls ruddy half-naked gods and pale greenish nymphs smiled and sported among the acanthus leaves, indifferent to the fleshly pain under their painted eyes.

While his guide-guard spoke with Ferrante's surgeon, Thur anxiously scanned the pallets. All strangers. Uri did not lie among these men. So. And how many men had Thur seen? Counting the troops besieging the monastery, more than Ferrante's original honor guard of fifty, surely. Some of the swifter cavalry must have already arrived from Losimo. How many days behind them did Ferrante's infantry march? He should try to find out these things, Thur guessed.

Ferrante's military surgeon was a squat swarthy Sicilian who moved with bustle. He seemed more a barber than a healer or mage, not at all like the learned and robed Paduan doctors who took pulses, sniffed urine, and pronounced gravely. This man looked like he'd be more at home digging graves. He wrinkled his full lips and shrugged when Thur removed his jacket to display his cut. The first profuse bleeding had stopped, and the elasticity of the skin pulled the edges of the wound apart. Thur stared with morbid fascination at the glimpse of his red-brown muscle sliding beneath the gaping gash.